Fencing systems have long been necessary to demarcate property lines and restrict movement of persons or animals across boundaries. Fences may be used to contain persons, exclude intruders, restrict livestock, and cordon off dangerous areas. A brief survey of fencing systems reveals agricultural, privacy, perimeter, decorative, and boundary fencing, all designed to serve either symbolic or functional purposes. Indeed, many fencing systems serve both purposes, as the fence's appearance may impart notice of its purpose and therefore the use being made of the land within the fence's borders.
Fences may comprise several varieties depending on the purpose and appearance desired. Certain fencing systems may comprise pickets or posts driven into the ground and fencing wire or other material running between the posts. A familiar example of such a system is the T-post fence, in which the posts are often cruciform or T-shaped.
T-post fencing systems generally provide a cost-effective and durable fence with relative ease of installation. T-posts may be known by other names including Y-posts and star-posts, but all generally share a T-shaped or cruciform cross section. This cross section may be of a lower-case or upper-case T-shape, or various other configurations. The T-posts are often fabricated from steel, although other materials may be used, including wood. The T-post may include notches, protrusions or holes along its length to accommodate fencing or fence clips, and a plate or flange along the bottom portion to accommodate driving the post into the ground and stabilizing the post thereafter.
Various tools may facilitate driving the T-post or other fence post into the ground. Such tools, or pounders, may comprise a cylinder or hollow member with closed and open ends adapted to encompass and drive a post. Other pounders may further comprise a traveling member or sleeve adapted to travel over the hollow member and ram the closed end of the hollow member into the post. The magnitude of the force required to drive the post may depend on several factors, including the soil type and concentration of rocks. Other tools known to those of skill in the art facilitate the pulling or removing of posts from the ground.
Once the posts are driven into the ground, fencing is often strung between the posts. Several devices facilitate the attachment of the fencing to the posts, most notably fence clips that attach to the posts and guide the fencing. Fencing may comprise plain wire, barbed wire, or more elaborate systems such as mesh fencing. Corner posts may be installed to brace or anchor the fence. Fence clips may comprise simple wire twisted around the post to secure the fencing, or pre-fabricated clips that the user applies to the post to accommodate the fencing.
During installation, fence posts are often misaligned or bent. Those of skill in the art will appreciate the problems associated with misaligned fence posts. By way of illustration, a misaligned post may compromise the integrity of the fencing wire. If the post is not aligned correctly, fencing wire will travel in a crooked fashion, thereby creating unwanted stress points throughout the fence. The wire or fencing may rest against an edge of the post rather than along its side, subjecting the fencing to fraying or breakage. Animals, intruders or inclement weather may all apply further stress to the fence, often causing breakage and incurring damage, lost livestock, or danger to people and animals.
To correct a misaligned post, an adjustable wrench is often applied. However, this approach often proves ill-suited or dangerous. For example, the opening of the wrench is often not suited to the post and may slip, damaging or further misaligning the post, or worse, injuring the user. In addition, adjustable wrenches are often not of a proper length to facilitate properly adjusting a fence post. Appreciable force is generally required to drive the post into the ground. The driving of multiple posts may therefore quickly fatigue the user, making the situation increasingly dangerous.
In addition, portions of the post may become warped or deformed after installation, or the post may simply have been manufactured defectively. The defect may subsist only in an edge of the post, or the post may be bowed across its length. An adjustable wrench or other device may again be applied to correct such defects, but this approach is rarely successful given that the wrench is seldom of the proper size or shape. Once deformed, therefore, the warped post must often be pulled and discarded in favor of a conforming post.